A First Time Build with Windows Home Server 2011 and HP ProLiant N40L MicroServer – Part II

In Part I, we saw how to take a Stock MicroServer (Stock Factory BIOS, Stock VB0250EAVER HP HDD, and Stock 2GB RAM) and added Windows Home Server 2011 (“WHS2011”) and two large HDD’s that we Mirrored in Disk Management of WHS2011 to create a Home Server that would do bare metal backups of our home PC’s and provide robust NAS performance.

In this paper I wanted to take that basic build with a Stock MicroServer in Part I, move the OS Drive to the ODD bay, add another Mirror using WD Green Drives, and then measure its performance with NASPTat different RAM levels (2, 4, & 8GB).

Note: the NASPT Benchmarks discussed in individual Postings are useful for Comparisons with the specific testing setup, network, and Client Workstation implementation in THAT Posting and should not be considered absolute benchmarks for comparison against results in another Posting.

Figure 1 — After changing the Boot order in the stock BIOS the VB0250EAVER performed well attached to the ODD SATA Port on the System Board with Stock BIOS

Next I installed two WD30EZRX (WD Green 3TB HDD’s) in Slots 1 & 2 (Ports 0 & 1) of the MicroServer and using the Disk Management Application in the Server Manager of WHS2011 I initialized the two WD30EZRX’s and Mirrored them (creating Drive F) – this would be a software RAID1. I labeled this GreenMirror1 and in the Dashboard for WHS2011 I moved one Server Folder from Drive E to Drive F and I created a new Server Folder on Drive F to be a Target directory on GreenMirror1 for NASPT. Now I had NASPT Targets on Drives E & F (Mirror1 and GreenMirror1).

During Home Server Show #225 Chris Kenney had told us that his testing showed that by increasing the amount of RAM in the MicroServer improved the NASPT test scores. This performance improvement can be seen in the following two figures for the Mirror of St3000DM001 drives and the Mirror of the WD30EZRX drives.

By comparing the performance of the two Mirrors at the discrete RAM levels (2, 4, & 8GB) I found an interesting piece of information.

First, when I compared the NASPT Performance of GreenMirror1 (2xWD30EZRX) to Mirror1 (2xST3000DM001) with 2GB RAM on WHS2011 there is a distinct difference between the WD30EZRX Mirror and the ST3000DM001 Mirror. I was expecting this when I saw the Mirror performances in Figures 3 & 4.

At 4GB RAM the NASPT scores were generally higher with a distinct difference between the GreenMirror1 (2xWD30EZRX) and Mirror1 (2xST3000DM001). Later, when I compared the NASPT Performance of GreenMirror1 (2xWD30EZRX) to Mirror1 (2xST3000DM001) with 8GB RAM on WHS2011 the scores for both were higher but there was virtually NO difference between the WD30EZRX Mirror and the ST3000DM001 Mirror. I was NOT expecting this. Clearly, one of the best things one can do for NASPT performance improvement in WHS2011 is to Max out the RAM to 8GB which appears to negate the differences (seen in Figures 3 & 4) in HDD performance in the different Mirrors.

As stated earlier: Clearly, one of the best things one can do for NASPT performance improvement in WHS2011 is to Max out the RAM to 8GB which appears to negate the differences (seen in Figures 3 & 4) in HDD performance in the different Mirrors.